Below is a brief walkthrough of the history of Yugoslavia from its roots as the post-WWI Kingdom of Jugoslavija, to the division of the Jugoslavs over support for Fascism or socialism, to the foundations of a dictatorial socialist power after World War II, until the total decay and collapse under the Serbian regime of Milosevic.

Kingdom of Jugoslavija, division during World War II, & the Republic of Jugoslavija:

In the 15th century, the awesome Jihad of the Ottoman Turks plunged the blade of Islam into the heart of the Balkans, conquering Albania, what is now Greece, Slavic Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia, and had pushed Hungary and Croatia to their knees. This rule -- along with its often forced mass conversion and compulsory conscription in Istanbul's Janissary elite -- continued for nearly 400 years. To save the Slavic and Hungarian Christians from the Jihad, the massive German empire of Habsburg Austria annexed Bosnia, Slovenia, Croatia, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary. Serbia freed itself on its own from Islamic conquest after two brutal wars with German and Hungarian support. These South Slavs (Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Macedonian Serbs) united under common ethnic and cultural nationalism under the increasingly socially-unstable Austrian Empire. In 1918, with the closure of the war, the Treaty of Trianon forced Austria's and Hungary's forfeiture of nearly all of their land. Czechia and Slovakia (later merged as Czechoslovakia), Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Hungary became independent, and Serbia retained its independence throughout the war. These South Slavs quickly rallied under the banner of their common Slavic racial and cultural heritage behind the Serbian kingdom led by King Piotr I; in 1918, the Kingdom of Jugoslavija was announced after its name changed from the "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, & Slovenes" comprising Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbian Macedonia and Kosovo -- all centered at Serbia. This was not a socialist state, but rather a monarchical dictatorship. Again, to learn the exclusive complete historical and cultural relation between these Slavic Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats from 900 until today, read this article.

In World War II, Jugoslavija was conquered by Axis Hungary, Germany, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria. The broken kingdom became split between the political worldviews of Fascist National Socialism and socialism or Communism. The destroyed kingdom was now a warground between socialist rebels like Marshall Broz "Tito" and Fascist sympathizers. Most Croats welcomed the Fascist invasion as a solution to Communist overthrow; Croatia became an ally of the Third Reich under the government of Ante Pavelic. Tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims (having converted as a generally-forced result of the Turkish Jihad) joined the Nazi SS elite (Schutzstaffel) due to mutual opposition of Jews, Communists, and Allied liberalism and atheism. The radical Islamist muftiy cleric of al-Quds (Jerusalem) offered support for the Axis and the Bosnian Muslim SS in their war against so-called "world Jewry" of the Allies, as he foresaw the coming creation of a Jewish state in previously-Arab Palestine. By the end of World War II, when it became apparent that liberalism of the West and Communism of the East would triumph, most Croats and Jugoslavs switched to support for a socialist ideal with support of the Soviet invaders. Under the banner of socialism, the Federal People's Republic of Jugoslavija was declared in 1944 when the Germans were withdrawing to fight the invading Americans and Soviets on both fronts. This was a socialist dictatorship centered in Serbia but with relative autonomy for each of its constituent republics: Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. This socialist state thrived as a relatively peaceful state free of the Soviet Union's endless wars. Tito became a national hero despite being a dictator, as remains today. Tito set aside political disputes between Serbs and Croats, etc., and treated the South Slavs with relative equality via cultural and ethnic ultranationalism (unlike Milosevic, which caused the nation's downfall), but was far from the equality of the West: Albanian Muslims, Gypsies, and many Jews were treated as anti-social opponents to the states and either killed, expelled, or disenfranchised; Jugoslavija was a socialist Slavic dictatorial state only.

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